THE CHRISTIAN’S SPECIAL CARE—TO KEEP ON HIS BREASTPLATE

  

  It is now time, having measured the ground, to lay the bottom stone on which the structure from these words is to be reared.  I thought to have drawn out several points as distinct foundations, to build our dis­course upon, but shall now choose to unite all in a single point—as one main building—though I make a few more rooms therein to entertain what else should have been handled severally.  The point is this—

           Doctrine. That he who means to be a Christian indeed, must endeavour to maintain the power of holi­ness and righteousness in his life and conversation.  This is to have ‘the breastplate of righteousness’ and to have it on also.  He is a holy righteous man that hath a work of grace and holiness in his heart, as he is a living man that hath a principle of life in him.  But he maintains the power of holiness that exerts this vigorously in his daily walking; as he the power of natural life, in whom the principle of life seated in the heart empowers every member to do its particular office in the body strenuously.  Thus walked the primitive Christians, ‘in whose veins,’ saith Jerome, ‘the blood of Christ was yet warm.’  Their great care was to keep on this breast­plate of righteousness close and entire, that it neither might loosen by negligence nor be broken by presump­tuous sinning. 

The character then that a saint was known by from other men, was his holy walking, Luke 1:6. There it is said of Zacharias and Elizabeth, ‘They were both righteous before God, walking in all the com­mandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.’  This was also holy Paul’s everyday exercise, ‘to have al­ways a conscience void of offence toward God, and toward men,’ Acts 24:16.  Never did any more curiously watch the health of their body, than he attended to the health of his soul, that no unholiness or unrighteous­ness—which is the only bane of it—might distemper and defile it.  And truly we, who come after such holy ones in the same profession, do bind ourselves to our good behaviour, that we will walk holily and righteously as they did.  The point carries its evidence on its forehead, and needs rather pressing than proving; and there­fore I may be pardoned if the demonstrations of the point be handled as well in the character of motives to, as of reasons for, the duty.  This will spare work in the application.  

FIRST.  Then I shall adduce some reasons why the Christian should have especial care to keep on the breastplate of righteousness; that is, to exhibit the power of a holy and righteous life.

SECOND.  I shall mention several instances wherein specially every Christian is to express the power of a holy and righteous life.  

THIRD. I shall lay down some direc­tions, by way of counsel and help, to all those who desire to maintain the power of holiness and righteousness in their daily walking.  These several branches we now proceed to take up in their order, applying them at the close.

Connection of the Breastplate and Girdle

           The words being thus opened, the observations are easily drawn from them.  But the copulative ‘and,’ with which this piece of armour is so closely buckled to the former, bids us make a little stand, to take notice how lovingly truth and holiness are here conjoined, like the sister-curtains of the tabernacle, Ex. 26:13, so called in the Hebrew; and it is a pity any should unclasp them which God hath so fitted to each other.  Let this then be the note from hence: Note. That truth and holiness must go together.

           First. Take truth, for truth of doctrine.  An orthodox judgment, with an unholy heart and an ungodly life, is as uncomely as a man’s head would be on a beast’s shoulders.  That man hath little cause to brag that what he holds is truth, if he doth be wicked.  Poor wretch, if thou beest a slave to the devil, it matters not to what part thy chain be fastened, whether to the head or foot.  He holds thee as sure to him by thy foot in thy practice as he would by thy head, if heretical and blasphemous; yea, thou art worse on it in some respects than they who are like themselves all over.  Thy wickedness is greater, because committed in the face of truth.  Many—the mistakes of their erroneous judgments, betray them unto the unholiness of their practice.  Their wicked lives are the conclusion which follows necessarily upon the premises of their errors.  But thy judgment lights thee another way, except thou meanest further to accumulate thy sin by fathering thy unholiness on truth itself.  They only miss their way to heaven in the dark, or are mislead by a false light of erroneous judgment, which possibly, rectified, would bring them back into the path of holiness; but thou sinnest by the broad light of truth, and goest on boldly to hell at noon-day; like the devil himself, who knows truth from error well enough but hates to be ruled by it.  Should a minstrel sing to a sweet tune with her voice and play to another with her hand that is harsh and displeasing, such music would more grate the judicious ear than if she had sung to what she had played.  Thus, to sing to truth with our judgment, and play wickedness with our heart and hand in our life, is more abhorring to God and all good men, than where the judgment is erroneous as well as the life ungodly.  Nahash had not enraged David so much, if he had come with an army of twenty thousand men into the field against him, as he did by abusing his ambassadors so basely.  The open hostility which many express by their ungodly lives, does not so much provoke God as the base usage they give to his truth, which he sends to treat with them, yea, in them.  This kindles the fire of his wrath into a flame of purpose, when he sees men put scorn upon his truth, by walking contrary to the light of it, and imprisoning it from having any command over them in their lives, and yet own it to be the truth of God.

           Second. Take it for truth of heart; and so truth and holiness must go together.  In vain do men pretend to sincerity, if they be unholy in their lives.  God owns no unholy sincerity.  The terms do clash one with another.  Sincerity teacheth the soul to point at the right end of all its actions—the glory of God.  Now it is not enough to set the right end before us, but to walk in the right way to it.  We shall never come at God’s glory out of God’s way.  Holiness and righteousness is the sincere man's path, set by God as a causeway on which he is to walk, both to the glorifying of God and to being glorified by God.  Now he that thinks to find a shorter cut and a nearer way than this, to obtain this end, he takes but pains to undo himself.  As he finds a new way of glorifying God, which God hath not chalked, so he must find a new heaven which God hath not prepared, or else he must go without one to reward him for his pains.  O friends! look to find this stamp of righteousness and holiness on your sincerity.  The proverb saith, ‘Hell is full of good wishes,’—of such, who now, when it is too late, wish they had acted their part otherwise when on earth than they did.  And do you not think there are there more  than a good store of good meanings also? such who pretended, when on earth, they meant well, and their hearts were honest; however, it happened that their lives were otherwise.  What a strange delusion is this?  If one should say, ‘Though all the water the bucket brings up be naught and stinking, yet that which is in the well is all sweet,’ who would believe him?  Thy heart upright, and thy meanings good, when all that proceeds from thy heart in thy life is wicked!  How can it be?  Who will believe thee? surely thou dost not thyself

Why Righteousness is Compared to a Breastplate

The second thing to be inquired, is, why righ­teousness and holiness are compared to the breast­plate?  And that is because of a twofold use that the soldier makes of this piece of armour, and of a twofold benefit he receives from it.

           First.  The breastplate preserves the principal part of the body, and that is the breast, where the very vitals of man are closely couched together, and where a shot or stab is more deadly than in other parts that are remote from the fountain of life.  A man may outlive many wounds received in the arms or legs, but a stab in the heart or other vital parts is the certain messenger of death approaching.  Thus righteousness and holiness preserve the principal part of a Christian —his soul and conscience.  We live or die spiritually, yea eternally, as we look to our souls and consciences. It is not a wound in estate, credit, or any other world­ly enjoyment, that kills us in this sense.  These touch not, hazard not, the Christian’s life, any more than the shaving of the beard, or the paring of the nails, do the man’s.  Spiritual vitals are seated in the soul and conscience.  It must be a spiritual dagger that stabs these, and that only is sin which is said to ‘hunt for the precious life,’ Prov. 6:26.  This is the ‘dart’ that strikes the young man ‘through the liver,’ who hasteth to his lust, ‘as the bird to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life,’ Prov. 7:23.  Now righteousness and holiness defend the conscience from all wounds and harms from sin, which is the weapon Satan useth to give the conscience its deadly stab with.

           Second.  The breastplate, by defending this principal part, emboldens the soldier, and makes him fearless of danger; and that is as necessary in fight as the other.  It is almost all one for an army to be killed or cowed.  A dead soldier slain upon the place, will do, in a manner, as much good, as a dead-hearted sol­dier that is dismayed with fear—his heart is killed while he is alive—and a naked breast exposeth the unarmed soldier to a trembling heart; whereas one otherwise cowardly, having his breast well defended with a plate of proof, will the more boldly venture up­on the pikes.  Thus, righteousness, by defending the conscience, fills the creature with courage in the face of death and danger; whereas guilt—which is the nakedness of the soul—puts the stoutest sinner into a shaking fit of fear.  ‘The wicked flee when no man pursueth; but the righteous are bold as a lion,’ Prov. 28:1.  They say sheep are scared by the clatter of their own feet as they run.  So is the sinner with the din of his guilt.  No sooner did Adam see his plate off, and himself to be naked, but he is afraid at God’s voice, as if he had never been acquainted with him.  Never can we truly recover our courage, till we recover our holiness—‘If our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God,’ I John 3:21

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1. Here is the efficient, or workman—the Holy Spirit.  Hence it is that the several parts of holiness are called ‘fruits of the Spirit,’ Gal. 5:22.  If the Spirit be not at the root, no such fruit can be seen on the branches as holiness.  ‘Sensual,’ and ‘having not the Spirit,’ are inseparably coupled, Jude 19.  Man, by his fall, hath a double loss; God’s love to him and his likeness to God.  Christ restores both to his children —the first, by his righteousness imputed to them; the second, by his Spirit re-imparting the lost image of God to them, which consists ‘in righteousness and true holiness.’  Who, but a man, can impart his own nature, and beget a child like himself? and who, but the Spirit of God, can make a creature like God, by making him partaker of the divine nature?
2. Here is the work produced—a supernatural principle of a new life.  (1.) By a principle of life, I mean, an inward disposition and quality, sweetly, powerfully, and constantly inclining it to that which is holy; so that the Christian, though passive in the production, is afterward active, and co-working with the Spirit in all actions of holiness; not as a lifeless instrument is in the hand of a musician, but as a liv­ing child in the hand of a father.  Therefore they are said to be ‘led by the Holy Spirit,’ Rom. 8:14.  (2.) It is a principle of new life; the Spirit’s work was not chafe and recover what was swooning, but to work a life de novo—anew, in a soul quite dead: ‘You hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses,’ Eph. 2:1. The devil comes as orator, to persuade by argument, when he tempts; the Spirit as a creator, when he converts. The devil draws forth and enkindles what he finds raked up in the heart before; but the Holy Spirit puts into the soul what he finds not there—called in Scrip­ture the ‘seed’ of God, I John 3:9.  ‘Christ formed in you,’ Gal. 4:19, the ‘new creature,’ Gal. 6:15, the ‘law’ put by God into the inner man, Jer. 31:33, which Paul calls ‘the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,’ Rom. 8:2.  (3.) It is a supernatural principle.  By this we dis­tinguish it from Adam’s righteousness and holiness, which was co-natural to him, as now sin is to us; and, had he stood, would have been propagated to us as naturally as now his sin is.  Holiness was as natural to Adam’s soul as health was to his body, they both re­sulting ex principiis recte constitutis—from principles pure and rightly disposed.
3. Here is the soil or subject in which the Spirit plants this principle of holiness—the child of God.  ‘Because ye are sons, he hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts,’ Gal. 4:6.  Not a child in all his family that is unlike his Father—‘as is the heavenly, so are they that are heavenly’—and none but children have this stamp of true holiness on them.  As the apostle, Rom. 8:9, concludes, we ‘have not his Spirit’ if we be ‘in the flesh’—that is in an unholy sinful state—so he concludes, we are ‘not his’ children if we ‘have not his Spirit,’ thus transforming and sanctifying us.  There is indeed a holiness and sanctification, taken in a large sense, which may be found in such as are not children.  So all the children of believers are ‘holy,’ I Cor. 7; who are not all children of God.  Yea false professors also gain the name of being sanctified, Heb. 10:29, because they pretend to be so.  But that which the Scripture calls righteousness and true holiness, is a sculpture the Spirit engraves on none but the children of God.  The Spirit sancti­fies none but whom Christ prays his Father to ‘sanc­tify,’ and they are his peculiar number given to God of him, John 17:17.
4. Here is the efficacy of this principle, planted by the Spirit in the heart of a child of God, whereby he endeavours.  As the heart—which is the principle of the natural life in the body—from the infusion of natural life, is ever beating and working, so the princi­ple of new life in the soul is ever endeavouring.  The ‘new creature’ is not still-born; true holiness is not a dull habit, that sleeps away the time with doing noth­ing.  The woman cured by Christ ‘arose’ up presently ‘and ministered unto them,’ Matt. 8:15.  No sooner is this principle planted in the heart, but the man riseth up to wait on God, and act for God with all his might and main.  The seed which the sanctifying Spirit cast into the soul, is not lost in the soil, but quickly shows it is alive by the fruit it bears.
5. Here is the imperfect nature of this principle—as it shows its reality by endeavouring, so its im­perfection, that it enables but to an endeavour, not to a full performance.  Evangelical holiness makes the creature rather willing than able to give full obedi­ence.  The saint’s heart leaps when his legs do but creep in the way of God’s commandments.  Mary asked ‘where they had laid Christ?’ meaning, it seems, to carry him away on her shoulders; which she was not able for to do.  Her affections were stronger than her back.  That principle of holiness which is in the saint, makes him lift at that duty which he can little more than stir.  Paul, a saint of the first magni­tude, he gives us his own character, with other emin­ent servants of Christ, rather from the sincerity of their will and endeavour, than perfection of their work. ‘Pray for us; for we trust we have a good con­science, in all things willing to live honestly,’ Heb. 13:18.  He doth not say ‘In all things we do live hon­estly,’ as if no step were taken awry by them; no, he durst not say so for a world.  But thus much he dares assert for himself and brethren, ‘that they are willing in all things to do what was holy and righteous.’  Where ‘willing’ is not a weak listless velleity,  but a will exerted in a vigorous endeavour, it weighs as much in an impartial ear, as that of the same Paul, Acts 24:16, ‘herein do I exercise myself.’  He was so willing, as to use his best care and labour in the ways of holiness, and having this testimony in his own breast, he is not afraid to lay claim to ‘a good con­science,’ though he doth not fully attain to that he de­sires: ‘We trust we have a good conscience, willing,’ &c.—he means in the favourable interpretation of the gospel, for the law allows no such good conscience.
6. Here is the uniformity of this principle in its actings—‘to God and man.’  True holiness doth not divide what God joins together: ‘God spake all these words,’ Ex. 20:1, first table and second also.  Now a truly sanctified heart does not skip or blot one word God hath written, but desires to be a faithful executor to perform the whole will of God.
7. Here is the order of its actings—as ‘to God and man;’ so, first to God, and then to man; yea, to God, in his righteousness and charity to man.  Paul saith of the Macedonians that they first gave ‘their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God,’ II Cor. 8:5.  God is first served, and man, in obedience to the will of God.
8. Here is the rule it goes by—‘what the word of God requires.’  Apocryphal holiness is no true holi­ness.  We cannot write in religion a right line without a rule, or by a false one.  And all are false rules be­sides the word—‘to the law, and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them,’ Isa. 8:20.

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What is the righteousness here meant?  

The Scripture speaks of a twofold righteousness; the one legal, the other evangelical.

           First.  A legal righteousness—that which God required of man in the covenant of works: ‘Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, that the man which doeth those things shall live by them,’Rom. 10:5.  Three things concur to make up this law righteousness.

           First.  An obedience absolutely perfect to the law of God, that is, perfect extensively, in regard of the object; intensively, in regard of the subject.  The whole law, in short, must be kept with the whole heart; the least defect either of part or degree in the obedience spoils all.

           Second.  This perfect obedience to the law of God must be personally performed by him that is thus righteous.  ‘The man that doeth these things shall live.’  In that covenant, god had but man’s single bond for performance—no surety engaged with him—so that God having none else to come upon for the default, it was necessary, except God will lose his debt, to exact it personally on every man.

           Third.  This perfect personal obedience must be perpetual.  This law allows no after-gain.  If the law be once broken, though but in one very thought, there is no place for repentance in that covenant, though it were attended with a life afterward never so exact and spotless.  After-obedience being but due, cannot make amends for former disobedience.  He doth not satisfy the law for killing a man once, that doeth so no more. How desperate were our condition, if we could not be listed in Christ’s muster-roll, till we were provided with such a breastplate as this is?  Adam indeed had such a righteousness made to his hand.  His heart and the law were in unison; it answered it, as face answers face in a glass.  It was as natural to him to be righ­teous, as now it is to his posterity to be unrighteous. God was the engraver of his own image upon man, which consisted in righteousness and holiness.  And he who made all so perfect, that upon a review of the whole creation, he neither added nor altered any­thing, but saw ‘all very good,’ was not less curious in the master-piece of all his work, he ‘made man per­fect.’  But Adam sinned, and defiled our nature, and now our nature defiles us; so that, never since could Adam’s plate—righteousness, I mean—fit the breast of any mere man.  If God would save all the world for one such righteous man—as once he offered to do Sodom for ten—that one could not be found.  The apostle divides all the world into ‘Jew and Gentile,’ Rom. 3:9.  He is not afraid to lay them all in the dirt; —we have before proved that they are ‘all under sin.  As it is written, There is none, no, not one.’  Not the most boastful philosopher among the Gentiles, nor the precisest Pharisee among the Jews—we may go yet further—not the holiest saint that ever lived, can stand righteous before that bar.  ‘Enter not into judg­ment with thy servant,’ saith David, ‘for in thy sight shall no man living be justified,’ Ps. 143:2.  God hath nailed that door up, that none can for ever enter by a law-righteousness into life and happiness.  This way to heaven is like the northern passage to the Indies —whoever attempts it, is sure to be frozen up before he gets halfway thither.

           Second.  The second righteousness, which the Scripture speaks of, is an evangelical righteousness.  Now this also is twofold—a righteousness imputed or imparted.  The imputed righteousness, is that which is wrought by Christ for the believer; the imparted, that which is wrought by Christ in the believer.  The first of these, the imputed righteousness, is the righ­teousness of our justification, that by which the be­liever stands just and righteous before God, and is called, by way of distinction from the latter, ‘the righteousness of God,’ Rom. 3:21; 10:3.  Not, as if the other righteousness were not of God also, but,

           First.  Because this is not only wrought by Christ, but also performed in Christ—who is God —and is not inherent in us, so that the benefit of it redounds by faith to us, as if we had wrought it.  Hence Christ is called ‘the Lord our righteousness.’

           Second.  Because this is the righteousness, and not the other, which God hath ordained to be the meritorious cause of the justification of our persons, and also of the acceptation of our inherent righteous­ness imparted by him to us.  Now, this righteousness belongs to ‘the fourth piece of armour’—the ‘shield of faith’—indeed we find it bearing its name from that grace, Rom. 4:11, where it is called ‘the righteousness of faith,’ because apprehended and applied by faith unto the soul.  The ‘righteousness’ therefore which is here compared to ‘the breastplate,’ is the latter of the two, and that is, the righteousness of our sanctifica­tion, which I called a righteousness imparted, or a righteousness wrought by Christ in the believer.  Now, this take, thus described.  It is a supernatural prin­ciple of a new life planted in the heart of every child of God by the powerful operation of the Holy Spirit, whereby they endeavour to approve themselves to God and man, in performing what the word of God requires to be performed to both.  Briefly let us unfold what is rolled up in this description.

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4. Let this encourage thee who art sincere against the fears of final apostasy.  Though sincerity doth not privilege thee from falling, yet thy covenant-state which thou art in, if sincere, secures thee from final apostasy.  Because thy stock of grace in hand is small, thou questionest thy persevering.  ‘Can these weak legs,’ thinkest thou, ‘bring me to my journey’s end; these few pence in my purse’—little grace in my heart—‘bear my charges all the way to heaven, through so many expenses of trials and temptations?’  Truly no, if thou wert to receive no more than thou hast at present.  The bread thou hast in the cupboard will not maintain thee all thy life.  But, soul, thou hast a covenant will help thee to more when that grows low.  Hath not God taught thee to pray for thy ‘daily bread?’ and dost thou not find that the blessing of God in thy calling, diligently followed, supplies thee from day to day?  And hast thou not the same bond to sue for thy spiritual ‘daily bread?’ hast thou not a Father in heaven that knows what thou needest for thy soul as well as body? Hast thou not a dear Brother, yea Husband, that is gone to heaven, where plenty of all grace is to be had, and that on purpose on his children’s errand, that he might keep their souls, graces, and comforts alive in this necessitous world?  All power is in his hands; he may go to the heap, and send what he pleases for your succour.  And can you starve, while he hath fulness of grace by him that hath undertaken to provide for you? Luke 10:35.  The two pence which the Samaritan left were not enough to pay for cure and board of the wounded man; therefore he passeth his word ‘for all that he should need besides.’  Christ doth not only give a little grace in hand but his bond for more to the sincere soul, even as much as will bring them to heaven.  ‘Grace and glory he will give,’ and ‘no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly,’ Ps. 84:11.

5. Take heed of resting on, or glorying in, thy sincerity.  It is true it will enable thee to resist temp­tations, and will recover you out, when in temptation; but who enables that? where grows the root that feeds thy grace?  Not in thy own ground, but in heaven.  It is God alone that holds thee and it in life; he that gave it is at cost to keep it.  The Lord is thy strength; let him be thy song.  What can the axe, though sharp, do without the workman?  Shall the axe say, ‘I have cut down?’ or the chisel, I have carved?’ is it not the skill and art of the workman rather?  When able to resist temptation say, ‘The Lord was on my side or else I had fallen.’  Set up an ‘Ebenezer,’ and write on it, ‘Hitherto the Lord hath helped me.’

           Though God promiseth in the psalm even now cited, to give ‘grace and glory’ to the upright, yet he will not give the glory of his grace to uprightness.  We have David asserting his uprightness, and how he was preserved by it: ‘I was also upright before him, and have kept myself from mine iniquity,’ II Sam. 22:24.  He declares the fruit of his uprightness, how God bare testimony to it by rewarding him for it, in vindi­cating him before, and giving him victory over his enemies: ‘Therefore the Lord hath recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to my clean­ness in his eyesight,’ ver. 25.  Now, lest he should set up himself, or applaud his own uprightness, to the prejudice of God’s grace, he sweetly corrects and bounds these passages, ‘God is my strength and power, and he maketh my way perfect,’ ver. 33. As if the holy man had said, ‘I pray, mistake me not; I do not ascribe the victory over my enemies within me or without, to myself and my uprightness.  No, God did all, he is my strength and power; yea, it is he that makes my way perfect.  If I be sincere more than others in my way, I must thank him for it; for he makes my way perfect.  He found me at first as crooked a piece, and walking in as crooked ways, as any other, but he made me and my way perfect and straight.’  Had God pleased he could have made Saul as perfect as David.  Had God left David, he would have been as crooked and false-hearted as Saul.  The last branch of the point was that sincerity hath a comforting strength in all sorts of affliction.  The applicatory improvement of which shall be only this—

           Use Second.  Let it teach us not to fear affliction but hypocrisy.  Believe it, friends, affliction is a harm­less thing to a sincere soul; it cannot be so great as to make it inconsistent with his joy and comfort.  A gracious soul in the most sharp affliction can spare his tears and pity, to bestow them on the hypocrite when in all his pomp and glory.  He hath that in his bosom that gives him more comfortable apprehen­sions of his own affliction, than standers-by have, or can have, of them.  This once made a holy man, when the pangs of death were on him, to ask a servant of his, weeping by his bedside for him, ‘What she meant by he fears,’ saying, ‘Never fear that my heavenly Father will do me any hurt.’  Indeed affliction is not joyous to the flesh, which hath made some of God’s dear children awhile to shrink, but after they had been acquainted with the work, and the comforts which God bestows on his poor prisoners through the grate, they have learned another tune, like the bird that at first putting into the cage flutters and shows her dislike of her restraint, but afterwards comes to sing more sweetly than when at liberty to fly where she pleased.  

Be not therefore so thoughtful about af­fliction, but be careful against hypocrisy.  If the bed of affliction proves hard and uneasy to thee, it is thyself that brings with thee what makes it so.  Approve thy­self to God, and trust him who hath promised to be his saint’s bed-maker in affliction, to make it soft and easy for thee.  O what a cutting word will it be in a dy­ing hour, when thou art crying, ‘Lord, Lord, mercy on a poor creature,’ to hear the Lord say, ‘I know thee not.’  It is not the voice of a sincere soul, but the voice of a hypocrite, that howls on his bed of sorrow. What then wilt thou do, when fallen into the hands of God, with whom thou hast juggled in thy profession, and never sincerely didst love?  If that speech of Joseph was so confounding to the patriarchs—‘I am Joseph your brother, who you sold into Egypt’—that they could not endure his presence, knowing their own guilt, how intolerable will it be to hear from God’s own mouth such language in a time of distress. ‘I am God whom you have mocked, abused, and sold away, for the enjoyments of your lusts; and do you now come to me?  Have I anything for you but a hell to torment you in to all eternity?’

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It remains that the point be applied in its several branches, which are three, viz. sincerity has a preserving strength, a restoring strength, and a com­forting strength.  But for quick despatch we shall do it under two heads, clapping the two former into one.

           Use First.  Therefore, sincerity hath a strength­ening virtue, whereby it either preserves the soul from falling into sin, or helps the Christian fallen to rise again.

1. This affords thee, Christian, a further dis­covery of thy heart, whether sincere or not.  Put it here upon the trial.  Dost thou find a power imparted to thee, whereby thou art enabled to repel a temp­tation to sin, when thou hast no weapon left thee to defend thee against it, but the command forbidding it, or some arrow taken out of the quiver of the gospel, such as the love of Christ to thee, thy love to him, and the like?  May be the temptation is laid so cunningly, that thou mayest sin, and save thy credit too, having a backdoor opened to let thee in to it secretly.  Thou shalt hazard nothing, apparently,of thy temporal con­cernment; yea, rather greatly advantage it, if thou wilt hearken to the motion.  Only, God stands up to op­pose it.  His Spirit tells thee it is against his glory, in­consistent with the duty thou owest and the love thou professest to him.  Now, speak what thou thinkest of sinning, the case being thus stated.  Canst thou yet stand it out valiantly, and tell Satan sin is no match for thee, till thou canst have God’s consent, and re­concile sinning against him and loving of him toge­ther?  If so, bless God that hath given thee a sincere heart, and hath also opened such a window as his in thy soul, through which thou mayest see that grace to be there, which seen, is the best evidence that God can give thee for thy interest in him, and life ever­lasting with him.  Wert thou a hypocrite, thou couldst no more resist a sin so offered, than powder fire, or chaff the wind.

          

 2. Again, when thou art run down by the violence of temptation, what is the behaviour of thy soul in this case?  Dost thou rally thy routed forces, and again make head against thy enemy so much the more eagerly, because foiled so shamefully?  Or art thou content to sit down quietly by the loss, and choose rather to be a tame slave to thy lust, than to be at any further trouble to continue the war?  The false heart indeed is soon cowed—quickly yields subjection to the conqueror—but the sincere Christian gets heart, even when he loseth ground.  Uprightness makes the soul rebound higher in holy purposes against sin, by its very falls into sin.  ‘Once have I spoken,’ he means foolishly, sinfully, ‘but I will not answer; yea, twice, but I will proceed no further,’ Job 40:5.  This made holy David beg of God to be spared a little, that he might have time to recover his strength before he went hence.  Loath he was to go beaten out of the field.  Might he but live to recover his losses by repen­tance of, and some victory over, those sins that had weakened and worsted him, then death should be welcome.  He felt like that brave captain who, wounded in fight, desired some to hold him up, that he might but see the enemy run before he died, and then he should close his eyes in peace.  Deal there­fore impartially with thy own soul.  Which way do thy falls and failings work?  If they wear off the edge from thy conscience, that it is not so keen and sharp in its reproofs for sin—if they bribe thy affections, that thou beginnest to comply with those sins which for­merly thy contest was, and likest pretty well their ac­quaintance—thy heart is not right.  But if still thy heart meditates a revenge on thy sin that hath over­powered thee, and it lies on thy spirit, like undigested meat on a sick stomach, thou canst have no ease and content to thy troubled soul till thou hast cleared thyself of it, as to its reigning power; truly then thou discoverest a sincere heart.

This shows of what importance it is to labour for sincerity.  Without it we can neither stand against, nor rise when we fall into temptation.  Whatever thou beggest of God, forget not a sincere heart.  David saw need of more of this grace than he had.  ‘Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me,’ Ps. 51:10; and happy was it for him he had so much as to make him desire more of it.  What folly it is to build a house with beams on fire!  The hypo­crite’s building must needs come to nought.  There is a fire unquenched—the power of hypocrisy unmorti­fied—that will consume all his goodly profession.  He carries into the field a heart that will deliver him up into his enemy’s hands.  And he is sure to be over­come to whom his own side is not true.

3. Bless God, O sincere Christian, for this grace, for it is a blessing invaluable—crowns and diadems are not to be compared with it.  In this, thou hast a heart after God’s own heart; a heart to his liking; yea, a heart to his likeness.  Nothing makes thee liker to God in the simplicity and purity of his nature, than sincerity.  Truth is that which God glories in.  He is ‘a God of truth.’  When Haman was bid to say what should be done to the man that the king delighted to honour, he, thinking the king meant no other than himself, would fly as high as his ambition could carry him; and what doth he choose, but to be clothed with the king’s own apparel royal!  When God gives thee sincerity, he clothes thy soul with that which he wears himself—‘who clothes himself with truth and righ­teousness as a garment.’  By this thou art made a con­queror greater than ever Alexander was.  He overcame a world of men; but thou, a world of lust and devils. Did one bless God, at the sight of a toad, that God made him a man and not a toad? how much more thankful oughtest thou to be, who hath made thee that wert a hypocrite by nature, which is far worse, an upright Christian?  It is notable saying of Lactantius,‘If,’ saith he, ‘a man would choose death, rather than to have the face and shape of a beast—though he might withal keep the soul of a man—how much more miserable is it, under the shape of a man to carry the heart of a beast?’  Yet such a one is the hypocrite; yea worse, he doth only under the shape of a man, nut in the disguise of a saint, carry a beastly filthy heart within him.